... The Solarium Menace, BBC-1, May 24, 9.25 by John Phillips IF ever there was a classic example of television's voracious appetite for material to fill the ever-hungry maws of the drama series, then this contribution to BBC-l's new thriller series was it. Watching it one became so aware of the factorylike flow production methods which the medium must perforce apply to its artistic endeavours ...

... The Team ATV, May 21, 9.00 by Michael Froslick---- WHEN I used to go to the, cinema as a little boy, some of the men who were not engaged in making the great days of Hollywood great, made films about racing cars. They one and all involved the boss's daughter and a secret carburettor they were one and all very bad. Since then Grand Prix and Le Mans have taken the cinema no more than half a step ...

... Public Eye: Well there was this Girl, You See Thames, July 14 by James Towler SINCE the departure of Badger (The Misfit) to far off shores, series drama has been in the doldrums. The trivia of Hine and Brett, not to mention the return of Kate, has made the reappearance of small time investigator Frank Marker all the more welcome. Here is someone you can actually believe in and that is ...

... Paul Temple: The Quick & the Dead BBC-l, July 14 by Patrick Campbell WATCHING Paul Temple again is like turning the clock back twenty years. Within the context of the progress made by television drama in general and by series in particular in the last decade, Temple is a period piece.. Indeed, were it not for the fashion-consciousness of Ros Drinkwater who plays Steve Temple, one might ...

... Drama programmes- by Elizabeth Allen IF ANYONE was in any doubt that The Death of a Young Young Man was set somewhere in Liverpool-land. the graffiti on the walls of the back-to-back houses, through seamy slums to prospective slums in the high-rise flats, put the matter right; where the tough, earthy language flows freely from the adenoids, and the most derogatory four-letter word is ...

... L. E. programmes by Tom Holt I NOW see how wrong we all are. After That, This (BBC-2, Thursday, January 30, 9pm) has gently removed the scales from my eyes. Eleanor Bron. the thinking man's Mona Lisa, and John Bird, with his incisive, precisive tone, have intelligently dismantled the whole idiom of intelligent society, elegantly making fun of Absolutely Every thing. They work in tableaux, ...

... Mummy and Daddy Play for Today, BBC-1, Thursday, November 15, 9.25 WHAT does the producer mean by his Play For Today? Does it mean that it is a play which will tell us something about contemporary life as Stale of Siege and A Clockwork Orange do in the cinema? But shouldn't all drama be contemporary and tell us something about life today, and doesn't the title Play for Today condemn all ...

... Too early to judge cable experiment SIR JOHN EDEN, Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, was asked in Parliament for a progress report of the experiment in local cable television in Bristol. He said that Rediffusion Cablevision Ltd. had been providing its Bristol Channel local com munity television service since May 17. The pattern of service and the amount of material provided were ...

... The Ripening Seed BBC-2, April 1 by Michael Frostick REMEMBERING that Colette also wrote Gigi. Penelope Mortimer might well have chosen to translate Le Big en Herbe not as The Ripening Seed but as Thank heaven for little boys. It is as well that she didn't, for her sensitive adaptation was not written for laughs though, come to think of it, one or two might have helped. There is a fatal ...

... BBC-1, April 29 by Miriam Sharman THERE is a welcome dearth of police and/or crime series on BBC at the moment. The return of the fifty-minute Z Cars to peak-viewing time on Thursdays is, therfore, not unreasonable and Richard Beynon's episode, Say Two Hellos was cent of the former glories of the original series. It didn't quite come off but it made intelligent viewing. Hildie (Daphne Heard ...

... The magic blend of words and pictures by Patrick Campbell THAT television is a communicator of the arts rather than an art of its own is too often forgotten by those who would seek the perfect form for the medium. Television borrows unashamedly from the theatre, the cinema, the newspaper, the radio and from literature. The craft of Its disciples lies in adapting each of those forms to its own ...

... The Midsummer Dream of Chief Inspector Blossom A TV, January 2 by David Griffiths THE plight of the actor portraying a very popular character in a rather corny TV series was the theme of this play, both written and directed by John Nelson Eurton. Harry Masters (Leslie Sands) was 49 years old and had been playing the star part in Calling Chief Inspector Blossom for 164 episodes. He was sick ...